Name: Lettuce Salad
Ingredients: Crisp young lettuce leaves; Coarse sea salt; Pepper; Sugar; Vinegar; Oil

Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Pick over the lettuce, selecting the crisp, young leaves.
Wash the leaves and soak them in ice water for 15 minutes.
Place the larger leaves in a salad bowl.
Gather the corners of a napkin, shake it lightly, and turn out the lettuce into the bowl.
Season with pepper, salt, sugar, vinegar, and oil.
Toss well with a salad fork and spoon, and serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lettuce + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,486 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).